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Friday, April 19, 2019

MEAT WITHOUT THE ANIMAL IN OUR FUTURE?

Those of us who still enjoy an occasional steak or a night
out at the sushi bar may find our indulgences come with a hefty portion of
guilt. If we’re not worried about our waistlines or our arteries from the beef,
or our livers from the mercury in the fish, we’re forced to ignore the environmental
impacts of our dietary habits as we eat.

After all, livestock are said to be
responsible for up to 15 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, and
that’s not even accounting for the amount of land that is cleared to make way
for pasture for the animals. Aggressive overfishing is rapidly depleting the
supplies of the tastiest fish that land on our tables, including most species
of tuna.

Of course, we could all make the difficult
decision to become vegan or vegetarian. (I can hear the groans as I type.) But
what is a confirmed carnivore to do?

Science (and commerce, naturally) to the
rescue! The
Atlantic reports that there are companies out there working hard to grow
beef, chicken and even fish that will look, smell and taste like the real thing—in
a lab. In fact, the meat will be the
real thing, cells taken from living animals grown in a medium of protein,
vitamins and sugar; it just won’t have been harvested from once-living animals raised
in a factory and slaughtered cruelly on an assembly line. (And, yes, I know
there are alternatives to the factory-farm model of livestock-rearing. Buying
your meat and eggs directly from local compassionate farmers helps, but not
every meat-eater can do that.)

CEO Josh Tetrick of Just Foods, which is
working on a chicken-less egg and, uh, an egg-less chicken, and Michael Selden,
co-founder of Finless Foods, which is working on a cell-based fish product, are
two pioneers on this frontier, according to The
Atlantic. But they’ve faced not only criticism from market-watchers,
but also technical challenges in their work. Taste is relatively easy, but texture
is a big obstacle. Even adults are used to a certain “mouth-feel” with our food;
if it looks like a chicken nugget, but feels like a gummy bear in our mouths,
we’re likely to revert to angry-toddler status.

Then there is the matter of price. Few grocery
shoppers will choose the “greener” alternative if it costs twice as much as
plain old bird. Both companies are working to lower costs, particularly by
lowering the cost of the nutrient medium and increasing the scale of
production.

But perhaps the biggest issue of all is selling
the idea of meat without the animal to a human race only a few millennia
removed from its hunter-gatherer origins. What
do you even call the stuff? Cell-based meat? (All tissue is essentially
cell-based, so . . .) Artificial meat? (I think we had that years ago in my
school cafeteria.) Lab-grown meat? (Ackk!) One thing is certain, the U.S.
Cattlemen’s Association has argued that nothing should be labeled “beef” that
hasn’t stood on four hooves out in a pasture somewhere, mooing loudly.

Josh Tetrick recognizes the labeling problem
as central to his marketing strategy. “Back in Alabama, where all my old
friends drive pickup trucks, imagine if Tesla put out a really fast, really
affordable pickup truck, but Tesla couldn’t call it a pickup truck,” he said.
“On the back, they had to say, like, ‘Electric mobility transport wheeler,’ or
some godforsaken name. My friends do not want to drive that, because it [messes]
with their identity, unfortunately.” Those same friends would be unlikely to
choose “lab-grown” burgers for their weekend barbecue.

Yet both Tetrick and Seldon can envision a
future where meat and fish grown in huge factory vats is the norm rather than
the exception. In that future, livestock grown for slaughter and fish caught in
nets on the ocean will be a part of our barbaric past, or practices relegated
to aboriginal tribes for their sustenance only. As writers of speculative
fiction, it shouldn’t be too hard for us to imagine this future ourselves. In
fact, it’s exciting to think we could be part of making it happen.

1 comment:

I find it very easy to imagine. I've read plenty of books that feature machines that create meals from base constituents. It's a bit like 3-D printing food. Sort of. I would certainly eat it. But the issues of texture and cost are certainly problems at the moment.

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